Oi, Hermione!
by StarrCat
Summary: Hermione/Ron-Hermione recognizes that even in the most strenuous and worrisome of times, good can come from being affectionate with the people you care about.
1. Warm milk? Yes please

"Ron, are you still awake?"

"Yes, Hermione." He sounds so very tired.

Harry's light snores could be heard from the couch next them, echoing throughout the room at #12 Grimmauld place. I'm glad he was getting some rest. It certainly hadn't been coming easy lately.

"Do you think we'll win this?" I ask him quietly, searching for his hand in the dark.

"I think we will. We just can't give up." I find his hand and he grasps mine firmly.

"Want some warm milk?" I inquire after a moment of silence.

"What?" He chuckles.

"It seems an appropriate act of comfort for a time like this" I retort.

"Yeah, that'd be great" I can hear a smile in his voice. Cheering Ron up through his stomach commonly works.

I slip off the couch quietly and Ron stands, both careful not to awake Harry. We pat down the stairs to the kitchen, still holding hands, our wands illuminating the dusty hallway. As we enter the kitchen I light a few candles around the room, giving a warm and faint glow to the worn kitchen.

"I worry too, you know." Ron states grimly as he takes a seat at the table. I grasp two mugs we had found earlier in a cabinet and fill them with milk we had purchased the day before, whispering a heating spell and placing them on the table, taking a seat across from Ron.

"It'd be ridiculous not to." I respond, delicately sipping the milk.

"It's nice to have little distractions," he indicates the milk with his hand, holding it up and taking his own giant gulp and then gasping because it was too hot. "Arg!" he exclaims, tossing down the mug and making an aghast face. "Ron, you oaf!" I retort while shaking my head, reaching across the table and wiping the milk that was dribbling down his chin with my sleeve. We both pause-my hand cradling the side of his face and him looking sadly into my eyes, I go to remove my hand and he catches it in his, saying "Hermione-" with a searching look on his face. "I know" I say, and nod my agreement with his unsaid feeling. He lowers our combined hands on the table. "It helps to be able to focus on something else, something that we haven't lost in all of this." There is something about the bold honesty of his words that strikes a chord in me. He certainly has grown up over these years, he isn't the bumbling and always hungry redheaded boy I met my first year at school. Well alright, he's still hungry. But now he's a man, bold and daring. I shiver a little, suddenly I feel a few butterflies in my stomach because our hands are still joined.

Be brave, Hermione. You're a strong witch and you're on a mission with your best friends to save the wizarding world, interacting with the male species shouldn't cause you any discomfort. It's Ron.

Ron. He very slowly lifts my hand and kisses it, gently, holding it to his lips where I can feel his breath on my fingertips. I stand, letting the butterflies in my stomach encourage me. By tomorrow we may have missed our chance. I walk around the table, him still holding my outreached hand, and I very tenderly sit on his lap. His face shows surprise, and switches to comfort. I wrap one arm around his back, and place my head on his shoulder. He reaches both arms around me and holds me there for a second. I pull back and look at his face, a small tear sliding down his cheek. I kiss him, full on the lips. To his credit, he doesn't make any remarks or act surprised, he simply kissed me back. We stay like that for a minute, not removing our lips from each other's, his hands tighten around my back and he murmurs something into my mouth.

I'm enjoying his warm, soft lips, and the way my stomach is now quite content, being filled with warm milk and approving butterflies. I pull back my face to see Ron's eyes in a sort of glazed over way, he stares at me for a second, and smiles, and I smile back. "This is nice" he murmurs, and I roll my eyes at his stating of the obvious and stand up, leaning over him again to peck him once more on the lips. Mmm, soft.

I grab his hand and we return to the drawing room where Harry is still fast asleep. We are still worried, but now we both had a renewed reason to be hopeful.


	2. Oh how I do love books

"What do you think this is?" Ron asks, handing me a small gadget he found on one of the various guest bedrooms bookshelves. As I examined it he flopped on the four poster bed with a sigh, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. We were spending the morning looking through the house, Harry was in another room, and we could hear him rustling around for information. "Ron this is a page turner, it marks the page you're on and even lights it for you when you're reading." He smiles, "I knew that, I just like listening to you explain things." I smirk and toss the page turner at him; he catches it and toys with it in his fingers.

I feel guilty for feeling a small perk of joy as I blush and turn away from him, looking again at the bookshelf. There was so much going on outside, we needed to find the other horcruxes and defeat Voldemort, there was no time to waste. Yet last night in the kitchen, kissing Ron in the candlelight, gave me a whole other reason to hope, to strive, to fight this battle to the end to protect everyone…and then perhaps when it was over, snog Ron a lot. The blush deepens, and I pretend to be really curious about one particular book "A Time and a Place for a Time Turner." I feel Ron come up behind me, reaching an arm past me, brushing my waist as it moves towards the bookshelf and I shiver, he pulls another book from the shelf and takes a look inside. I shut my eyes and turn to him, letting my yearning override my logic, and I gently pull him to the bed, the book in his hand quickly lands on the ground. I look above us and listen, Harry's still making the occasional noise in that room.

I slowly lower myself onto the bed on my back and pull Ron by the shirt towards me; he has those wide eyes I've come to get used to during my time of knowing him. "Kiss me, Ron." He seems appreciative for the direction, and immediately reaches his arms around my back and engulfs my lips with his. Yesss, my body hums with approval for the activities taking place. I open my eyes and Ron pulls one of his hands from behind me and gingerly runs it down the side of my face. "Hermione…" he leaves the sentence unfinished, but his face shows wonderment at my forwardness. The Hermione he once knew would only stick to searching through books and in the house's every crevice looking for a clue and pushing him away when things got affectionate (distractions were bad). This Hermione seemed to know that the rare minutes they could take advantage of could actually help to recharge them on their quest.

He swoops down for another kiss, this time running a warm tongue over my lips until I parted them to grant him entry to my mouth, swirling our tongues around together for another few moments, until we heard "I FOUND SOMETHING!" coming from upstairs. Before we rush up to see what Harry's discovery was, I look one last time at Ron, who's hovering above me and seems to have come back to earth, come back to the reality of the situation, and still shocked at my affectionate advances as of late. "Hermione…" he says, at a loss for words. "Let's go" I say, as I grab his hand and squeeze it, flying off the bed and out the door upstairs, Ron in tow.


	3. Mmm, Hazelnut

I look around, seeing massive piles of bookshelves in tall rows leading in every direction away from me. They are packed with every kind of book imaginable, some leather-bound and heavy, some looking like mere paper pamphlets. I recognize it here, I'm in the Room of Requirement, and the room is giving me what I most want right now: a place to search for answers. I've been dreaming this same dream a lot lately.

Something is different this time though, I notice, as I start to wander the rows of books. Periodically there is a stool to sit on, to read my latest selection of reading material. I sit and scan the book titles, and I notice they're not in focus. Try as I might, I cannot actually read the title of any of the many books. At this same moment I smell something out of the ordinary, it's a soft scent of hazelnut or cinnamon, like a scented candle-something my mum would burn around the holidays while I was growing up. Unconcerned by my inability to read (quiet a rarity), I decide to wander towards the comforting smell.

I start tracing my steps back the way I came, heading towards the normal place I ended up in past dreams-to a certain corner with a big red stuffed armchair. As I round the bend I start quickly-instead of the armchair there is a four poster bed-beautifully detailed, mahogany wood, golden sheets that looked so silky that I could easily picture them on a Veela. I look to the left of the bed and see an end table covered in a dark red cloth and adorned with lit candles, the source of the smell now confirmed.

Movement to my right causes me to quickly turn and I see a person-another person in the Room of Requirement-in my dream?-lighting yet more candles on what looks like a dining room table. Noise comes out of my mouth, a combination of the phrase "what are you doing here" and "eepp!",,,it comes out as "whateep!" said in a stern tone, I place my hands on my hips for further establishment of my disdain for having my knowledge-gathering dream room being invaded. The person turns. "Hermione," Ron says slowly, warm smile on his face. "Ron?" my brow furrows, this is new. I'm usually on my own here. He's dressed in a red sweater his mom knit him, and some brown pants he asked my advice on ages ago. He looks a little different…confident, like he's on a mission. Suddenly my heart starts beating faster, and the butterflies are back.

Ron approaches me; I lower my hands to my sides. The truth is, I'm glad to see him. There is something fierce in his eyes as he approaches me, I barely have time to react as he reaches me in one last stride and swoops me into his arms, staring at me as he carries me to the bed, just smiling calmly, not saying anything. For a split second I feel anxiety over what he's doing, but then I remember that firstly, it's Ron, and I've been enjoying snogging him lately, and secondly, normal time doesn't exist here-we have no need to worry. I smirk and place a hand on his broad chest, he's so warm. He confidently arrives and the bed and gently lays me down gently. The sheets do feel like silk, and I embrace the relaxation I feel at the moment by stretching my arms out wide and shutting my eyes. I wouldn't mind if this was always the alternative to the armchair.

I open my eyes to see him above me, giving me that same rare, fierce look that I realize I like. I open my mouth to say something and he leans down and kisses me. His lips are as warm and soft as I remember them, and I reach to grab his red locks of hair and pull him closer, I want this. He makes a sound in the back of his throat, and it puts my body in overdrive. Ron presses himself against my body, and we roll once so that I'm lying on top of him. I break the kissing for a second to look down and see his face looking relaxed and happy, and he reaches one hand up and puts it against my face "Hermione" he says adoringly.

I reach for the hems of my own sweater and lift, feeling bold and ignoring my nagging feeling of "this is wasting precious time, you should be saving the world, what are you doing?" I pull my sweater over my head, revealing my pale pink brassiere. I discard the sweater on the floor. Ron's mouth opens a bit as he runs a focused hand gently down my bare side. I shiver a little. This wakes him from his small reverie and he pulls me back down to lock lips again-this time with his tongue asking for entrance into my mouth. I grant it-and we roll over once more, lips interlocked and tongues dancing; now with Ron on top of me. My body is on fire. One of his hands is being used to prop himself up, the other is slowly creating patterns with his fingers on my waist. _His hands are so big, how could I have never appreciated that before_?

Ron takes his sweater off in one fluid motion, and I wonder why it took us so long to reach this point in our relationship. I raise a hand and run it down his bare back as we stare at each other, eyes wide with a whole new appreciation for the closeness.

All these feelings of lust are rolling around in my lower abdomen and even though I've only mainly read about experiences like these (certainly Viktor and I's encounters were mild)-I felt sure of what to do. Ron was acting so confident and smooth, I felt the same way. "Ron, take off my bra" I whisper quietly. He looks serious, and responds immediately to my command by leaning down to kiss me firmly and while doing so, reach around my back to unclasp my bra. He's still looking into my eyes as he discards it off the bed, and it lands next to my sweater. Not like my attention is really on the placement of my clothing, however, for Ron is now trailing his warm fingers along my stomach, towards my breasts. My breath catches as he arrives, his big hand softly cupping my chest and a happy sigh escapes my lips.

He smiles at me, and leans in to resume our snogging.

My eyes fly open, as I look around I realize I'm sleeping on the same couch I have been sleeping on in the living area of 12 Grimmauld place, my hand draped over the side of the couch where I had fallen asleep holding Ron's.

I look down at him-he's sleeping peacefully on the floor, lying on his stomach with mouth half open, breathing deeply. I feel a warm feeling in my abdomen again; I really want his warm hands on me. I want us to be that relaxed again, that confident. I feel so utterly bold to have dreamt such a scenario, and now I desire it to happen while again. Innocent Hermione is not so innocent anymore. In the darkest of times, it can be of great help to have a dream turn into reality.


End file.
